Opposed devotions? Creation and care in the cultural precariat

Resum

In this article we will address the specific logic of cultural precariousness, focusing on gender factors that place working women in positions of structural weakness—a complex and multidimensional phenomenon. In our analysis, we focused on the relationship between creative labour and care work as differentiated social spaces. We understand ‘care work’ as the management of people’s well-being, essential for the sustainability of life and the reproduction of the workforce. On the other hand, ‘creative labour’ is the most visible dimension of artistic activity and implies the production of works that achieve a social value and are recognised as artistic. The latter includes, especially as a result of the recent precariousness processes at play, an important component of ‘free labour,’ individual background work aimed at providing adequate conditions for creation and which nowadays focuses on the construction and maintenance of social networks and e-reputation. In short, while creative labour constitutes the visible and socially recognised part of artistic practice, free labour and care work form the hidden part. Although these aspects do not receive social recognition, they largely determine individual achievements, beyond the romantic conceptions of the ‘genius artist’ strictly focused on the creative sphere. In our article we reflect on the relationship between both these types of work, construction of their constitutive logics—which are generally incompatible with each other—and identify their main contradictions.